FINGERSTYLE GUITAR, FOLK, BLUES & BEYOND

Category Archives: News

Few voices embody the unaffected, haunting power of folk songs like that of Shirley Collins. Though this author considers her something of an institution, it would seem that there was a long stretch of time where Shirley went underground…

Thanks for stopping by. Lots of life stuff got in the way of this little blog staying up to date, which is okay. If you notice, everything is all higgledy-piggledy right now, but we’re working on getting it straightened out. New posts will be infrequent but many have asked that I keep the archived material going. So yup, I’m working on it. Thanks for your patience.

Text lifted from the BBC. I don’t really have it in me to write anything of my own right now.

Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, a founding member of the band Pentangle and a well-known guitarist in his own right, has died at the age of 67. Jansch, who had cancer, passed away in the early hours of Wednesday morning at a hospice in Hampstead, north London.

Born in Glasgow in 1943, the musician recorded his first album in 1965 and his last, The Black Swan, in 2006. Between 1967 and 1973 he was part of acoustic group Pentangle, best known for their 1970 hit single “Light Flight”. John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Danny Thompson and Terry Cox were the other original members of the band, whose albums included Basket of Light and Solomon’s Seal. The group reformed in 2008 after receiving a lifetime achievement honour the previous year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. As a solo artist, Jansch received his own lifetime achievement accolade at the same event in 2001.

A scheduled solo show at the Edinburgh Festival later that month was cancelled due to the singer’s ill health. Speaking to The Guardian last year, Jansch – who is survived by his wife Loren – said he was “not one for showing off”. But he admitted that his guitar-playing “sticks out” – a skill that once prompted Neil Young to put him on the same level as Jimi Hendrix.

Booking agent John Barrow, who helped the musician stage shows throughout his career, said he would remember Jansch as a “hard-working musician” and “a great man”.

“He was very quietly spoken,” he told the BBC. “People used to say to me, ‘he doesn’t talk much, does he?’ But when he could play the guitar like that, why should he be talking?”

David Leicht and Raymond Morin, both contributors to Work & Worry, have created a new video for the song “Capitano”, from their 2010 CD/Tab book release Petrifidelity. The clips were filmed at Morin’s home and at the world-famous Sharp Edge beer dispensary. Check it out below!

There are still a small handful of Petrifidelity books available. Visit here for more info!

Bay area guitarist and composer Chuck Johnson has assembled his fingerstyle guitar compositions into a new digital-only collection called A Struggle, Not A Thought. Chuck is a great picker, and was featured on this summer’s fantastic Tompkins Square compilation Beyond Berkeley Guitar. You can stream the songs on Chuck’s Bandcamp page. You can also read our recent interview with Chuck here.